Rumsfeld wrote:This team has too many third-liners right now and as a result there isn't much finish. I really hope we upgrade our forwards soon.

Michael Grabner with his 9th goal tonight

Cody Hodgson with his 9th and 10th goal tonight

Both players would be leading this team in goals.

Yawn. You ever go look at how many goals those players are costing their current teams?

Grabner has been on the ice for more even strength goals against (16) than any Canuck other than Dan Hamhuis (18), and has been on for more ES GA per sixty minutes played (3.61) than any Canuck other than Tom Sestito (3.92) and one footed Ryan Kesler (5.70).

Hodgson has been on for eight more ES goals against (26) than any Canuck (Hamhuis at 18), and more per sixty minutes of ice time (5.21) than one footed Ryan Kesler.

Lapierre is a good 4th liner when he shuts the hell up and concentrates on the defensive side of the game, but put him with a couple of talented players like Booth and Kassian and he looks like a total passenger. Not even a passenger really, more like an anchor that is holding that line up.

Booth-Schroeder-Kassian seems like an obviously superior alternative to me.

Outside of not buring more Grade A scoring chances, overall a very good effort tonight. San Jose had no business being in this one, and unfortunately it got to the skills competition.

The Canucks PP is garbage and has been for more than a calendar year now. FFS, it's time to try something different there Newell Brown. Park Kassian's ass out front and bank shots in off him or something. The second unit should be the "pass the puck to Garrison" unit.

Hansen, Raymond, Higgins and Booth have had excellent effort levels the past two games, which is the way these players need to play. Kassian has been better, and I think having him with some consistent and skilled linemates will help (see above), but I'd like to see him play a bit more like David Booth, who skates confidently and goes to the net with authority. Booth is a fucking fantastically strong skater. If the coaches could get Kassian to carry the puck with authority a bit more like Booth and get to the god damn dirty areas with the puck more often, we could have a real gem.

The Sedins look great. Burrows fits them like a glove.

Better defensive coverage this game, but still a work in progress. I thought Barker looked OK until he gave the puck away in the third, but then he made that amazing save in front of the net. I'll count that as a wash and continue evaluating!

Read an interesting 30 thoughts article yesterday where Friedman mentioned that Boston has completely evened out the number of right and left hand players they have. All left wingers and defensemen use left sticks, all right wingers and defensemen use right sticks. They have two right and two left handed centres. Made me think of how desperately we need another righty defenseman.

Meds wrote:Booth cruising with his speed, Kassian controling the puck well and making room with his size, but that's about it. Lapierre really nullifies the potential of that line.

Booth and Kassian finding some chemistry has been one of the biggest positives from the past few games. They haven't scored but they have dominated possession and created a ton of chances.

If / when Ryan Kesler can get healthy and back into form, that line could be the missing sauce, in terms of a physical line that can also score, that this team has been looking for since basically forever.

Potatoe1 wrote:Booth and Kassian finding some chemistry has been one of the biggest positives from the past few games. They haven't scored but they have dominated possession and created a ton of chances.

If / when Ryan Kesler can get healthy and back into form, that line could be the missing sauce, in terms of a physical line that can also score, that this team has been looking for since basically forever.

Any chance Raymond could continue to play centre when Kesler's back (assuming we are healthy)?

Lapierre is a good 4th liner when he shuts the hell up and concentrates on the defensive side of the game, but put him with a couple of talented players like Booth and Kassian and he looks like a total passenger. Not even a passenger really, more like an anchor that is holding that line up.

Booth-Schroeder-Kassian seems like an obviously superior alternative to me.

Agreed. I don't understand AV's logic here. Schroeder is good defensively and has a lot more skills to offer than Lapierre but is still stuck with two grinders.

herb wrote:The Canucks PP is garbage and has been for more than a calendar year now. FFS, it's time to try something different there Newell Brown. Park Kassian's ass out front and bank shots in off him or something. The second unit should be the "pass the puck to Garrison" unit.

Agreed. When things don't work, it is time to change a bit, even just a tiny little bit. Kassian could be a better choice than Burrows on the first unit, mainly due to his size and toughness. Kassian could at least take more beatings than Burrows.

herb wrote:Hansen, Raymond, Higgins and Booth have had excellent effort levels the past two games, which is the way these players need to play. Kassian has been better, and I think having him with some consistent and skilled linemates will help (see above), but I'd like to see him play a bit more like David Booth, who skates confidently and goes to the net with authority. Booth is a fucking fantastically strong skater. If the coaches could get Kassian to carry the puck with authority a bit more like Booth and get to the god damn dirty areas with the puck more often, we could have a real gem.

The Sedins look great. Burrows fits them like a glove.

Better defensive coverage this game, but still a work in progress. I thought Barker looked OK until he gave the puck away in the third, but then he made that amazing save in front of the net. I'll count that as a wash and continue evaluating!

Read an interesting 30 thoughts article yesterday where Friedman mentioned that Boston has completely evened out the number of right and left hand players they have. All left wingers and defensemen use left sticks, all right wingers and defensemen use right sticks. They have two right and two left handed centres. Made me think of how desperately we need another righty defenseman.

You just gotta love Hansen. He is just like a junk yard dog when he forechecks. He had 3g 2a and a +6 in the last 3 games. Higgins, the journeyman from Florida, has been very good in the last 5 games with 3g 0a +4.

Barker is defensively okay except that brain fart in the third. Luckily he made up for it with a great save. For the last two games ONLY, I will actually rate him over Alberts because Barker seems to able to put the puck on NET.

Agreed that the Canucks desperately need another one or two RH defenseman to balance out the backend.

Meds wrote:Lousy start to this one. Good push back in the second period.

We had 18 shots and totally dominated play in the first period. The second period was probably our worst.

Maybe it's time to watch the games on the couch instead of peeking occasonally over your monitor.

Watched start to finish. It was a lousy start for the first 5 or so minutes.

San Jose had the slightest edge in play for the first 2 min, then Edler took a bone headed penalty after screwing up with the puck and the Sharks took over til almost the 8 minute mark. Then Gomez scored and the Canucks woke back up. After that it was all Vancouver until we got our first PP.....sigh.....having the extra man just kills us. Then it was all us again. We owned the game, we even showed everyone how not to score with a hundred fucking chances.

The result was not great, but the process was great. They keep playing like that, they'll be more than fine.

Canucks almost doubled the Sharks in chances over 3 periods.

The PP did not give up a shorthanded goal to Burish - Schnieder did.

Once the PP got warmed it, it was dominant. They didn't score mostly due to luck and goaltending, not process. I don't see any reason to change anything on the PP if they can keep it up. I don't know if this is actually true, but I perceive the more opportunities the powerplay gets, the better it seems to become. Perhaps getting 1 or 2 powerplays a game over the last 2 weeks doesn't allow the first unit to get enough time to stay sharp?

Larry Goodenough wrote:The result was not great, but the process was great. They keep playing like that, they'll be more than fine.

Canucks almost doubled the Sharks in chances over 3 periods.

The PP did not give up a shorthanded goal to Burish - Schnieder did.

Once the PP got warmed it, it was dominant. They didn't score mostly due to luck and goaltending, not process. I don't see any reason to change anything on the PP if they can keep it up. I don't know if this is actually true, but I perceive the more opportunities the powerplay gets, the better it seems to become. Perhaps getting 1 or 2 powerplays a game over the last 2 weeks doesn't allow the first unit to get enough time to stay sharp?

Schneider should have made the save but Henrik should take 50% of the blame. He was the one who made the no-look soft backhand pass to the middle of the ice, which eventually turned out to be a breakaway.

Henrik has the best backhand pass in the business, but he's totally fallen in love with it to the point where he has a clean forehand pass but elects to spin away and feed it on the no-look backhand instead. It's coughing up a lot of pucks and it's fucking annoying. If there's a guy in the lane that you're trying to fake out, fine, but he often does it when there's nobody there to intercept the puck.

Last night Thornton took the puck in our zone and Henrik, a step behind, had a head start on him. Thornton, who is way bigger than Henrik and a slow skater in his own right, proceeded to pull away from Henrik WITH THE PUCK and easily put 15 feet between them by the time he walked into our zone and got a grade-A chance. They were both fresh on the ice, Henrik wasn't gassed.

It's pretty sad that the guy is so unathletic thayt he can't skate better than this after so long in the league. It's great that he has cardio, but maybe switch up some of those rollerblading marathons with some wind sprints in the offseason... it's fucking embarrassing.

Cowards die a thousand times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.

Larry Goodenough wrote:The result was not great, but the process was great. They keep playing like that, they'll be more than fine.

Canucks almost doubled the Sharks in chances over 3 periods.

The PP did not give up a shorthanded goal to Burish - Schnieder did.

Once the PP got warmed it, it was dominant. They didn't score mostly due to luck and goaltending, not process. I don't see any reason to change anything on the PP if they can keep it up. I don't know if this is actually true, but I perceive the more opportunities the powerplay gets, the better it seems to become. Perhaps getting 1 or 2 powerplays a game over the last 2 weeks doesn't allow the first unit to get enough time to stay sharp?

This is all basically bang on.

This was actually one of the better games we have played this year, but their goalie was fricken fantastic the Sharks were able to drag it to a shoot out and get the extra point.

If the Canucks play like they did last night they will win a lot of hockey games.

Rumsfeld wrote:It's pretty sad that the guy is so unathletic thayt he can't skate better than this after so long in the league. It's great that he has cardio, but maybe switch up some of those rollerblading marathons with some wind sprints in the offseason... it's fucking embarrassing.

Yup he's a bad skater.... Of course that same bad skater has been the most productive point producer in the game since 2008.

Rumsfeld wrote:It's pretty sad that the guy is so unathletic thayt he can't skate better than this after so long in the league. It's great that he has cardio, but maybe switch up some of those rollerblading marathons with some wind sprints in the offseason... it's fucking embarrassing.

Yup he's a bad skater.... Of course that same bad skater has been the most productive point producer in the game since 2008.

Dont let that fact get in the way of a good rant though

I know it gets your knickers in a knot when someone points out something unflattering about the Sedins, but in case you haven't noticed they are not the players they were a couple seasons ago.

When they were putting up 100-point seasons their defensive gaffes, lack of physicality and terrible skating were easily overlooked... not so much this season. They spend as much time in our corners now as they do in the opposition's.

Cowards die a thousand times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.